


Towers

by dvske



Series: Implicit [12]
Category: Transistor (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 13:12:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7977949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dvske/pseuds/dvske
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a fleeting catharsis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Towers

By all accounts, the building was a frightening sight.

Erected in the mere span of a night, it towered over every other structure in Cloudbank’s downtown district. Harsh, jagged edges carved at the sky, angled in such ways that defied physics. Where metal should have shone, sleek and uniform, coarse black materials screamed out in defiance. Not a single level was stacked properly, zigzagging at various intervals and degrees, jutting out or shrinking from view. For all its girth, it was surprisingly hollow. Nothing but darkened windows and uninviting surfaces met the eye. Its interior, nothing but widely spaced pillars, barren rooms and walls. No entrances. No doors. No signs or logos denoting the building’s purpose.

It looked a mixture of near-collapse and crumbling sculpture. An amazing feat, to be sure. A wonder it hadn’t toppled down in the week following its sudden appearance. Every inch of it demanded attention citizens were more than eager to give.

Crude, they declared. Visually threatening. Overwhelming in size and dysfunctional in every sense of the word. It stood, a blatant disregard of recent votes for a central library in that very location. This wasn’t the agreed upon building the people had asked for. This—no one was sure just _what_ this was. Why it was. Why it seemed to speak of pent frustrations, discomfort, duress.

But there, it remained.

The public took to OVC forums and blogs; to private and public gatherings; to the television and radio, every venue imaginable. They debated the necessity of a building no one even wanted, the rationale behind its design. Several rallied for its deconstruction. Others were lost enough in their fascination to suggest, if nothing else, that the building remain as a monument of sorts. Others, still, were caught in between.

Was this artistic expression?

Was it engineering gone wrong?

Did it represent, perhaps, some mental unhinging in the architect’s mind?

And what of the man in question? What did he have to say?

Nothing. Royce said nothing at all.

He’d simply tune in to the discussion, the speculations about this anomaly, about his mental state. He’d always been known for aloofness in such matters, preferring his work to speak for him. And said work was often daring, unique, puzzling to both those who adored and hated it alike.

Yet never had he produced something so jarring. Never had he fallen to such frenzy during the creation process, wholly unconcerned with mandates and polls and professional obligations. Never had he been so bitten by the need to deny the people what they wanted, for once. Not ever, not once in all these years of swallowing pride and folding to public whim again and again and again. Again, he’d work. Tirelessly, he’d work. He’d work and add his flare where and when he could, but far too often his boldness went admonished. Unnoticed. Unappreciated.

Until now.

For once, the city was subject to his will, his alone.

Just this once.

_For now, for now._

Always, fleeting freedom.

And wasn’t that just the Cloudbank way?

Perhaps, but…

For now, he’d stay secluded in his studio, numb to the city and its cries. He’d sink back in his chair, taking long drags of his cigarette as the smoke drifted overhead. He’d sit in his haze and sift through the latest outpour of outrage and praise, of Administration’s increasingly forceful demands for his compliance. The “Mr. Brackets” and such, every “Response Required” skimmed over and deleted. Messages from Grant, Asher and Sybil—worried, annoyed, disapproving in turns, each “What’s happened, Royce?” and “You can’t use _it_ like this, Royce, we discussed.’

Everyone, left utterly ignored.

He’d address the issue. Later, when the tide inside him quelled. When remnants of his initial rage fizzled, as they always did.

The world demanded response.

For now, he’d give it nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah, I'm working on stuff again.


End file.
